Building and construction applications in which materials such as concrete, metal, and glass are used typically employ joint systems that accommodate movement due to thermal expansion and/or seismic effects. These joint systems may be positioned to extend through both the interior and exterior surfaces (e.g., walls, floors, and roofs) of a building or other structure. In the case of an exterior joint in a wall, roof, or floor exposed to external environmental conditions, the joint system may also, to some degree, resist the effects of such conditions. Particularly with regard to horizontally-oriented joints in parking garages and the like, the joints are designed to resist rain, standing water, snow, ice, debris such as sand, and in some circumstances several of these at the same time as well as the effects of traffic. Horizontally-oriented joints subjected to pedestrian and/or vehicular traffic and designed to withstand such traffic generally incorporate cover plates that are positioned over the joints to protect the materials of the joint system against the environmental conditions and to allow for smooth traffic flow. Such cover plates may also be positioned over spaces, holes, or structural gaps where there is no material to be protected but to allow for smooth traffic flow. The cover plates are typically steel or material of similar durability.
In anchoring the cover plates across joints or structural gaps in concrete or other structural surfaces which may experience movement such as thermal expansion and/or seismic effects, the cover plate is attached on one side of the joint or structural gap so as to allow the structural elements beneath the plate to expand and contract and otherwise move as a consequence of the thermal and seismic forces as well as dynamic load transfer. Cover plates are also utilized in applications involving the securing of any other element that incorporates a mounting plate (such as a sign) to a substrate where wind or other forces will cause a load on the mounting plate or in the fasteners securing the mounting plate. In such applications, stresses are induced in the anchoring fasteners. These stresses can cause conventional fasteners to fail in various ways. For example, fasteners can loosen, pull out of the substrate, or damage the substrate. Stresses can also cause deformation of a cover plate as a consequence of being too firmly restrained by the fasteners.